Giving away 10% of your company before you have a product might seem like a reasonable price for mentorship and introductions.

But do the math at exit, and you get a very different story.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva talks to Melanie Nabar, growth equity investor at Volition Capital, about ...

If you've ever nodded along while someone talked about coding — secretly having no idea what they actually meant — this episode is for you.

This is one of our most listened to episodes, and it's easy to see why.

Before you can work effectively with developers, evaluate tech products, or make sm...

Your time, energy and capital are all scarce resources. Each has an opportunity cost.

And yet many founders make decisions about their ventures based on excitement rather than evidence — committing all three without ever asking the question a smart investor would ask first: is this actually wort...

In the 20th century, financial literacy was essential.

In the 21st century, it's product development.

AI has made building faster and cheaper—which means more bad bets are being made at higher speed.

The bottleneck isn't "Can I build this?" It's "Should I build this? Will anyone pay?"

In this...

You can build the best product in the market and still lose to a mediocre competitor.

This isn't reverse psychology—it's how markets actually work.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva breaks down why superior products lose to inferior ones, and what you can do about it.

You'll learn:

• Why ecosy
...

How do you start a marketplace when you have no customers? Or a dating app with no users?

This is the classic chicken-and-egg problem every platform faces: you need both sides to attract either side.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva breaks down six proven methods successful platforms used to so...

A beautiful logo won’t save your startup.

If you treat go-to-market as a slick website and a rebrand, you’re already behind.

Here’s the thing. In tech, marketing isn’t a department. It’s product strategy. From day one.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva breaks down the seven pillars of go-to-mar...

AI isn’t just coming from Silicon Valley anymore.

A growing number of startups — and companies like Airbnb — are turning to Chinese open-source AI models instead of US-based APIs. Not because it’s trendy. Because it’s cheaper, more flexible, and often good enough.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva ...

Costs dropped 90%. Funding got 10x harder.

It’s now much cheaper to build an AI product than it was two years ago — and far harder to convince investors your product has a moat.

In this episode, Sophia Matveeva breaks down the four investing shifts shaping who gets funded, who doesn’t, and wh...

Starting a tech company sounds exciting: autonomy, upside, the chance to build something meaningful.

The reality is tougher.

Startups demand constant decision-making with incomplete information, emotional resilience, financial sacrifice, and the ability to withstand rejection from investors, cu...

If you're thinking about joining Tech for Non-Technical Founders, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I walk you through exactly what you'll be doing for the next 6 weeks—and where your app, platform, or marketplace will be by the end of February.

When you listen to this episode, you will...

It is harder to raise funding as a non-technical founder as a non-technical one.

Some of this is silly stigma, but some of it is reasonable risk awareness.

Investors aren’t worried that you can’t code.

They are worried you’ll burn through their money because you don't know how to get a tech ...